Stars To Mingle At Sophia`s Evening

February 28, 1990|By MARTHA GROSS, Society Editor

Think last year`s Extraordinary Evening with Sophia Loren and Friends at Williams Island was a zowie star-studded bash? Wait until you see this year`s. Tommy Tune, Nancy Walker, Eddie Albert, Nanette Fabray, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Phyllis Newman, Richard Adler, Hal Prince, Van Johnson, Doloros Gray, Margaret Whiting and Eartha Kitt will all attend it. Most likely Gwen Verdon and Hal Linden and a bunch more, too. (``Aren`t we lucky to have such people and so many of them donating their time and talent?`` raves Judi Male, co- founder of the Community Alliance Against AIDS, which is staging the event).

Sophia Loren, of course, will top the list. With remarkable 102-year-old George Abbott. Abbott`s wife, Joy, and Broadway song-and-dance ace Donald Saddler, wrote the evening`s entertainment, a musical variety show crammed with Abbott`s Broadway hits.

Things will kick off with a ``Welcome Walk Down Shubert Alley,`` along the path to the tent. Dinner will be a divine feast. Dessert will be to die for -- little Swiss chocolate, piano-shaped boxes full of berries and whipped cream. Tickets cost $500 to $2,500. With the higher price you get egg roll -- preferred seating, a celebrity dinner the night before, and program mention. Call the Alliance at 1-305-573-3300 for tickets.

TAKING THE HEAT

They barely stopped in time. I mean if that roasting of Sun-Sentinel publisher Tom O`Donnell had gone on any longer Friday night, his wife, Pat, would have been looking for a place to store his ashes. The roast, perpetrated at the Marriott Hotel and Marina, was a benefit ($45,000) for Stranahan House. Bill Dover called it an equal opportunity roast. Everyone took a shot.

Such carnage. Not only did Dover, Bill Leonard, Fred Millsaps and Gordon Oliver absolutely cauterize him, and the largest Stranahan Roast crowd ever (400) goad them on, laughing mercilessly at their cruelest jabs -- but they even brought in tapes and messages from numerous celebrities -- Ann Landers, Jack Nicklaus, Gerald Ford, etc. Painful putdowns, every one.

Nicklaus said he`d rather go to the dentist than dine with O`Donnell. ``Of all the people I`ve ever seen trying to play golf, he`s the worst.`` Ford, remembering their golf outing, suggested, ``Next time we get together, let`s go fishing.`` Hale Irwin recalled asking O`Donnell to help him line up a putt, snorting, ``Even on a 2-foot putt, he tries to measure the wind.`` His best golfing skill, they said, was lying about his handicap.

The roasters scorched O`Donnell with the flames of sarcasm and left-handed compliments. Oliver told everyone right out what a lousy hunter and fisherman he was (but gave him credit for creative excuses for missing). Leonard complained about how thoroughly O`Donnell has messed up the paper`s delivery. Even the pope (O`Donnell played host on his visit here) declined to spend another evening with him. (He said he`d send the rain, though. And he did.)

Roast emcee Millsaps recalled phoning Pat once when O`Donnell looked sick and saying, ``I don`t like the way Tom looks.`` Pat replied, ``Well I never did, but he`s good to the kids.``

Oh, it went on and on, until poor O`Donnell began to resemble well-done rib roast (without the fat removed, of course.) All night they only came up with two compliments. First, that he was a good door-to-door Bible salesman years ago. He`d promise people he was either going to sell them one or read them one. It worked every time.

The other was that he was the first man in 40 years to leave Chicago without being indicted. Well, hey! That`s better than nothing.

BUT WHO`S LIKE IVANA?

How to solve marital troubles like the Trumps`? By solving the obvious shortage of handsome, smart, filthy-rich men. (Same method would solve the critical shortage of single men over 60, and the surplus of women of that age.)

Just reinstate polygamy.

But only men could have extra partners (unfair, but practical). However many they could support. It wouldn`t be a disaster when one had a headache. And a wife who hates housework could simply say, ``Let the others do it, darling.``

It could solve Donald Trump`s help problems, too. He could put a wife in charge of each building or casino -- for a measly $1 a year and all the dresses she could use -- and let her do a brilliant job. (If he can find any more like Ivana.) He could pick reserved, private women who wouldn`t blab his business around. (If he can find any more like Ivana.)

Would Marla Maples qualify? Who knows? Can she run a casino? Is she private enough?